


Of Meddling Scavengers & Confusing Feelings

by StellinaGatsby



Series: Of Casual Sex & Sugar Bombs [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Angst, Other, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 23:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellinaGatsby/pseuds/StellinaGatsby
Summary: Barrett is not a fan of their Sugar Bomb supplier. Not at all. Especially not now that she and Murphy have sexiled him to the lab.





	Of Meddling Scavengers & Confusing Feelings

Barrett could tell there was something off when he walked into the lab.

Murphy wasn’t there, but maybe he had gone topside for a smoke. Nevermind that’s where Barrett had just come from: he’d been out on a scavenging run, looking for food. He’d been going further and further away since the Cornucopia Grocer had been picked clean months ago.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was strange when he walked into the main room. Then he spotted four boxes of Sugar Bombs on the desk, the dirty white still standing out in stark contrast to the drab greys and browns of the rest of the Wasteland.

 _She_ had been here.

A couple of assault rifles sat on the desk next to the cereal boxes. The giant backpack she carried was leaning against the wall.

She was still here?

That begged the question of where Murphy and the scavenger were. Sometimes she stuck around and they talked shop. She seemed to know a lot about chemistry for a scavver, or at least enough that Murphy liked to talk to her about it.

A noise from the back room got his attention. He raised his rifle and stepped closer to the door. There was some sort of quiet commotion in the back room, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

A mole rat had gotten in? That didn’t seem right.

Then he picked a female voice out of the noise and Barrett realized what it was.

Anger bloomed in his chest. That fucking smoothskin.

Everything had been fine until _she_ came along. Just him and Murphy cooking Ultra Jet, Murphy constantly talking at him about the chemistry behind it or the physiology of ghouls and how little was understood about their condition.

Yeah, Sugar Bombs had been getting harder and harder to come by, but they had a good thing going, him and Murphy. A routine, day by day, week by week, and they were able to rely on each other.

Then little Miss Fix It showed up.

Murphy had been telling Barrett less and less about the work he was doing, now that he had someone who actually understood what he was talking about. As much as the constant chatter had annoyed him before, the lack thereof annoyed him even more now.

He had been furious the first time he noticed her flirting with him: letting her hand brush against his while he showed her their set up, giggling at his stupid jokes, making stupid jokes back, jokes laced with sexual innuendo. He had told Murphy she was flirting with him, but he had brushed him off, claiming she didn’t mean anything by it.

And now he was stuck sitting in the lab, listening to the same god damned smoothskin moaning Murphy’s name. He wanted to kick in the door and put a bullet right between her eyes, but he doubted Murphy would forgive him for that.

He should have done it the last time she visited, claiming he didn’t recognize her.

She had waltzed into the station wearing Talon Company armor with 200 lbs of shotgun wielding ghoul at her heels.

When he raised his rifle, the other ghoul raised his shotgun.

She put her hands up. “Barrett! Don’t shoot! It’s me.” She whipped off her sunglasses and ball cap, so he could see it was indeed her.

He lowered his gun. He should have shot her. Her bodyguard probably would have shot him back, but it would have been worth it.

Where was her big ass bodyguard anyway?

If she had left him behind, she had planned on this happening. She had known somehow he wouldn’t be here.

Damn it! How long had this been going on!?

He paced around the lab, absolutely fuming, unable to to think anything other than, "That fucking smoothskin!" on indefinite repeat.

The back room had gone quiet. He was still pissed about it.

He knocked forcefully on the door. He heard whispering on the other side. He knocked again, louder.

“Yeah?” came Murphy’s voice, sounding annoyed.

He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say; he just wanted to let them know he was there and he wasn’t happy about it.

“Just trying to figure out where you were,” he said.

More whispering. He wasn’t sure what to do now. He made them aware he was here and had heard them, probably killing the mood; he took perverse glee in that fact.

After a few minutes, the lock clicked open and Murphy and the scavenger came out, both looking sheepish. She was decked in full armor; Murphy was slightly more disheveled, barefoot and holding his t-shirt in his hands.

“Hi, Barrett,” the scavver said.

He refused to respond. He saw Murphy roll his eyes.

“Those are for you.” She gestured at the assault rifles on the desk. “I gotta run, boys. Catch you on the flip side.”

She grabbed her pack, donned her sunglasses and her stupid baseball cap, and walked out, not a single fuck to give about the mess she was leaving behind.

After they’d heard the gates back out into the Wasteland crash shut, Murphy asked “You find any food?” He was apparently going to act like nothing had happened.

Barrett was still smoldering. He didn’t really want to talk to Murphy at all, much less stupid bullshit small talk.

“What the fuck are you doing with her?” Barrett hissed.

“What’s it to you what I do with her?”

Barrett opened his mouth to answer, then snapped it shut again. What was it to him? Why did he care that Murphy was fucking some smoothskin bitch?

He didn’t have an answer. He just knew he hated it.

**Author's Note:**

> The explicit Lone Wanderer & Murphy POV side of this story is available here: [Of Casual Sex & Sugar Bombs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15764874)


End file.
